How Jeremy Corbyn unleashed my inner Zionist, and can do the same for you!

The left prides itself on listening to people. We’re quick to notice men telling women that their experiences aren’t what they say they are. We’re attuned to the Islamophobic conflations that crop up in the media. We’re the first to concede that history often elides the testimonies of witnesses who fall outside the mainstream discourse. We’ve got a vocabulary of victim-blaming, slut-shaming, gaslighting to employ when we see rhetoric and privilege being used to elide people’s experiences.

We pride ourselves on hearing when someone is trying to tell us something.

Except when it comes to Jeremy Corbyn.

When an embattled minority tell us (on the whole) that they feel threatened not only by the people he associates with, but that they fear his leadership might pose an actual threat to their safety, we’re pretty quick to issue a “Calm down, dear,” and move on.

Why? And let’s whisper this: MIght it be… Because they’re Jews?

Not all Jews, of course, (that’s usually our first defensive fallback) but we have to ask how comfortable are avoiding clear concern by pointing at Miriam Margolyes and Michael Rosen and saying “See? See?”

When 67% of Jews are worried about something, it’s no better an argument to point to the 13% who are unconcerned by it than it would be to dismiss the concerns of women fearful of being attacked by pointing out that some women aren’t afraid of it.

And yet we do.

We dismiss the experiences of decent, thoughtful, sensitive people, people we like and respect because they’re Jews. And the left is the champion of the underdog. And Jews no longer fit the underdog narrative.

(It seems redundant to point out here that, of course, Jews never have. That’s how antisemitism works. The basis of antisemitism as far back as we can follow it is always that the Jews are more affluent than others, that they’re disproportionately represented in the media, or in banking, and that you should envy their position. The attack on Jews is always that they’re too powerful…)

At the base of this is a suspicion that antisemitism isn’t a reality in Britain today, or, if it is, it is one so vanishingly small as to make it irrelevant.

It’s at this point that someone will point out that there are more Islamophobic hate crimes than there are antisemitic ones (as if that were relevant, as if we only have the mental space to deal with one hatred at a time). That’s true, of course, because the Muslim population is much larger than the Jewish population. Looked at per head, the situation is very different.

Per capita, Jews are the most attacked minority in the country. Underdog enough for you, now?

Be aware of what you’re doing every time your response to having antisemitism pointed out to you is to point out that other kinds of attacks happen, too. You’re the guy arguing against shelters for battered women because there aren’t any shelters for battered men.

That’s the context of people’s worries about Jeremy Corbyn. That’s the context of their fears, and it won’t do to brush them aside.

In fact, let’s concede that the fear that a Corbyn leadership would bring a rise in antisemitism might be something we didn’t notice, even if it were true. Because we’re not noticing it now.

At the same time, let’s ask ourselves how antennae so attuned to picking up dog whistles about Islam are failing so utterly to notice the antisemitism that is growing around us.

It breaks my heart that to find good sources about the incidents above I’ve had to link to The Daily Mail and Breitbart. When the “Hurrah For The Blackshirts,” “stateless Jews pouring in from every port,” Hitler-congratulating Daily Mail is doing better at covering antisemitic attacks prominently and ferociously than other parts of the media, we have to change the way we behave. And quickly.

There are two issues: that of Corbyn’s past associations and what they signify, and that of whether his election will promote antisemitism. I disagree with the ‘concerned’ Jewish community about both of those things. But explaining why is for a different article, one that isn’t about listening to people: Gentilesplaining Corbynmania.

Here’s the thing. If I’m wrong (and they’re right), I won’t be the one who suffers. They will. It’s something I can afford to take a punt on because I’m playing with the house’s money, and shouldering no risk myself.

That’s why it’s incumbent on me, and everyone else who has supported Jeremy Corbyn, to show that antisemitism does concern us, that we are listening, and that we will do whatever we can to combat it.

Yes, it shouldn’t need saying. But it does.

Yes, we shouldn’t have to say it.But primary school children shouldn’t have to go to swastika-daubed schools under armed protection where they will learn to hide under their desks in case of gunfire, at risk simply because of their faith.

We have to say that this cannot be right, that this cannot be the 21st-century, that this cannot be Britain.

We have to write about it, shout about it, and challenge it wherever we see it, and leave no one in any doubt that antisemitism will no more pass unchallenged than racism or sexism or homohpobia.

Oh, and should tell the world, proudly, that we are Zionists.

Bear with me, lefties.

The term ‘Zionism’ has become conflated with expansionist, authoritarian Likudnik policies. This lazy alteration of the meaning of the word has been accepted by the right because it lets them lay claim to a whole movement, and by the left because it burnishes its anti-imperialist credentials.

It’s also become a word in which antisemitism lurks.

We’ve all seen it. We’ve all seen the way that criticism of Israel can drift into unacknowledged antisemitism, usually blanketed by the word ‘Zionist’.

When we let a word which means “the belief that the Jews have a right to a homeland, and that homeland is in Israel” become something else, something vague, we give away the conceptual space inside it, only to find it inhabited now by extremists of all stripes.

We on the left use “anti-Zionist” as an amorphous badge to signify anti-imperialism, a broad critique of Western intervention in the Middle East, support for the human rights of Palestinians or any number of other things depending on what day it is. As such a broad, hazy, umbrella term, it’s unsurprising that such a vague term also includes people who are just “anti-Jew.”

Let’s examine, for a second, what actually being an “anti-Zionist” might mean. It means you don’t accept that the Jewish population of Israel have a right to a state.

In fact it means you’re against their having a state, and you’re against their being in Israel (or whatever you’re intending to call it when Israel isn’t there). The problem with that position, of course, is that Israel is there, and if your future solutions involve it not being there, the implications of that are pretty horrific.

It means you’re aiming to displace 6 million people, almost half of the world’s Jews. Charitably. The other option is that you’re aiming for them to be dead.

If you have no qualms about destroying the lives of 6 million Jews you may not be as un-antisemitic as you’d like to think.

No matter what your opinions on the history of Israel, to be an anti-Zionist now is call for (or, at the very least, express ambivalence to) its non-existence now. That’s what you’re saying about yourself when you adopt the term “anti-Zionist”, and I say this not so much to berate others as clarify thinking I’ve had to do to clarify years of muddiness.

If you support Jeremy Corbyn it’s time to stand up and say you’re a Zionist. Even if you hadn’t realised it.

Zionism, of course, has many strands. It encompasses peace-makers and warmongers, liberals and conservatives, the religious and the secular, Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky.

It may have become a loaded term, but all of us who wouldn’t countenance a peace process based on Israel’s not existing are Zionists.

Not until we’ve said it can we stand side by side with the Liberal Zionists (who, incidentally, want an end to the settlements, the occupation and a free and sovereign Palestine) as they campaign against discriminatory laws within Israel and work to prevent displaced people being dispossessed of their land.

Not until we’ve said it can we sponge off the stain of years of lazily sharing a term with people devoted to corrupting its meaning.

Not until we’ve said it can we properly understand the range of opinions and experiences and lives that there are in Israel and begin to come to some understanding of what a nuanced, complicated, almost-certainly-unsatisfactory-but-workable peace process would look like.

Not until we’ve said it can we look our friends in the eye, hold their hands and say: “If I’m wrong about this, I’m sorry, and I’ll be right here with you, fighting.”

Great to read an intelligent, well-reasoned piece on this issue. Not sure I 100% agree: Zionism, like all words, slips meaning all the time. For many, on both sides of the argument, it describes the policies that arise from ethnic nationalism – the identification of a piece of land with a particular religious group. I think you’re correct that we on the left have to be careful not to sound as if we’re aiming for a future without Israel. Tbh the whole debate would be greatly enhanced by dropping the term Zionism altogether. Final point, to me as a Jew in London, the idea that a Corbyn leadership will lead to heightened anti-semitism feels like total nonsense. True, respect people’s fears. But still.

The connection that we Jews have to the land of Israel is more than just religion, my friend. It is about the genesis of culture. The word “Jew” literally means “one from Judea”. Throughout our more than 2,000 year long exile we have always centered ourselves around Israel. It’s about our calendar, our clothes, our food, all of which adapted themselves to the different locations we were in throughout the diaspora, but all of which were formed in concept in Israel. We Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel, and this is indisputable. Zionism is about indigenous rights. Religion was just a compact way of maintaining our culture and heritage in the diaspora.

I’m sure you’re right. The real question now is surely what actions lead towards peace rather than perpetuating conflict, and history is only sometimes useful in this respect. I hope all those who say, quite rightly, that they are proudly Zionist are equally vocal in their support of a sovereign Palestinian state, as Nathaniel suggests.

Thankyou. This hugely helps those of us left wing Jews who have felt left out in the cold by the ‘JC for leadership’ stance. The comments flying around about Jews/Zionists have been insulting and ignorant. Zionism – as Saul Bellow put it – is about sanctuary not expansionism. Look to Likud for expansionism in the same way you look to Cameron for attacks on the poor and disabled.

You forgot to mention that for the past 20 years or so, Jewish institutions, such as synagogues, need security protection whenever the buildings are open. When the Israeli ambassador comes to speak at a synagogue the police have come with sniffer dogs to find explosives. My synagogue happens to stand next door to a church, I never see any security guards outside the church. On the High Holidays there are also security guards from the police not just our own security guards. That is how Jews have to live in the UK.

Just a correction though I don’t think it alters the force of what you say: the total world Jewish population is generally given I think, as about 14 million so 6 million Israeli Jews would be about 42% of that – not 83%.

Well argued but I suggest one enhancement related to: Here’s the thing. If I’m wrong (and they’re right), I won’t be the one who suffers. They will.

That thinking was valid for say, Rwanda. Due probably to the path of the history of western civilisation, when it comes to the Jews, empirical evidence suggests rather strongly that harm to them will spread itself quite widely.

A fine article, well argued and, one hopes, likely to wake some leftists, especially Corbynites, up. I could not vote Labour again if Corbyn was the candidate for PM. May I just remark on one statement, which needs to be modified? ‘The basis of antisemitism as far back as we can follow it is always that the Jews are more affluent than others, that they’re disproportionately represented in the media, or in banking, and that you should envy their position. The attack on Jews is always that they’re too powerful…’ That’s not entirely true. The Nazis played that simultaneously with ‘the Jews are vermin, cockroaches, peasants from the shtetl/ghetto, carries of disease, etc.’ And much Christian anti-Semitism saw the Jews as twisted, ugly, murderers of Christ. Islamic anti-Semitism treatrs Jews as the lowest of people, ‘the sons of apes and pigs’, corrupters of the Torah, killers of the prophets who must be subdued. This is impotant. The true character of anti-Semitism is that, no matter what the Jews do, no matter who or what they are, they are still to be despised and slaughtered. For the Nazis, it didn’t matter whether Jews were converts to Christianity, believers in Judaism, atheists, rich or poor – they still had to be herded into camps as slaves or sent to death camps and killed. Anti-Semitism is a prejudice quite unique.

This is a very thoughtful piece. Inspiring, and not much to argue with. When elected leader, hopefully Jewish people’s concerns about Corbyn will recede. I think a lot of Jews in the UK have become conditioned to the UK political establishment kowtowing to Israel, and are discomforted by any idea of even handed ness in the complex politics of the Middle East. In my view, Corbyn is a transparently decent man, with not an antisemitic bone in his body, and a program for Britain that chimes with the needs and desires of the vast majority of the British people. I marvel that anyone could whip them selves into a frenzy of worry over the possibility of a Corbyn led Labour Party coming to power, with policies to halt and reverse the long term decline in the fortunes of the UK economy (as experienced by the many), but are completely relaxed about Cameron and Osbornes calamitous rule.

Ususal zionist rant and camp followers as above. This passive-aggressive role play (‘oh we’re the real victims – but you are Palestinian and we will harrass you and kill or abduct your children’) really doesn’t wash any more.

Last night on the BBC World Service there was an interview with a Muslim living in Malmö, Sweden (his parents’ nationality was not revealed) who has started a group to combat antisemitism in Malmö. He claimed that antisemitism in Sweden among Muslims (though he also claimed there were Nazis and we know there were plenty of Nazi sympathisers in Sweden during the War) was due to the Israel vs. Palestinians conflict. The interviewer did not point out that “any excuse is good enough”. He had even taken a mixed group to visit Auschwitz.

I love this piece. The only correction I would make is that antisemitism is more a form of racism than an attack on a different ‘faith’. Antisemites rarely discriminate between Jews who are observant, secular, Buddhist, agnostic. And as Yael pointed out earlier, our connection to Israel is also rooted in indigenous rights (Jews being an aboriginal people of Southwest Asia), as well as a need for sanctuary.

Absolutely! As has been pointed out by many people, including most recently Julie Burchill, antisemitism is a form of racism that is like no other. Most racial slurs are against people whom the racists regard as being inferior, in the case of Jews, the opposite is the case. In fact, it is a form of jealousy. What frightens so many people about the Jews are not the myths but the facts! That is why Arabs like Arafat are so desperate to deny that the Temple ever existed in the same way that Holocaust deniers deny the existence of a “final solution” or even the gas chambers.